Burch Scribbles is a very talented artist and this fantastic photorealistic illustration of Jay-Z is even more impressive when you know that Scribbles is self-taught. Such is his skill, it looks like Mr Carter is staring you right in the face. And it's amazing watching it develop.

Using colored pencils Scribbles begins layering different tones to create the incredibly realistic skin textures. In total the image took him 80 hours from start to finish which is a lot of dedication.

But that's how he gets such amazing detail.

Explaining his techniques to Reddit, the London-based artist says, "To do photorealism, you need to break the original image down into a grid, then use that grid on your paper. This enables you to concentrate on the fine details."

Scribbles continues, "The grid is just there as a guide, it's your interpretation of the photo that matters. Changing tonal values and adding a warm or cold feel is good to play with. Layering translucent textures, then erasing fine details, and adding more layers on top can produce the complex, deep textures."